5 Rules for Drama-Free Living

By Elaine Bentley Baughn

The 5 Rules in this book will help you manage stress, make mindful choices about your life, increase life satisfaction, and regain power over your daily life. This book combines simple explanations of neuroscience, easily accessible mindfulness skills, and pearls of wisdom gleaned from an experienced psychotherapist’s years of help

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elm Grove Press
• Release date: Jun 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781940863092

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 Elaine Bentley Baughn

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

Published by Elm Grove Press, LLC

To request information about our books, write to: Elm Grove Press, LLC, P.O. Box 153, Old Mystic, CT 06372 Or visit us on the web at: www.elmgrovepress.org

Published 2017

ISBN: 978-1-940863-08-5

ISBN: 978-1-940863-09-2 (e-book)

Cover and Interior Design: Walter Schwarz

Cover photo of Monument Peak, Montana by Mary L. Cryan

Quotes used with permission:

Nikki Giovanni

Dave Grossman

Pema Chödrön Foundation

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America

ELM GROVE

5 RULES

for Drama-Free Living

CONTENTS

Homage and Acknowledgements

Introduction

Practical Approach to the Rules

Rule One: There is one and only one thing in the world that we have power over

Chapter One: One Thing You Control

Chapter Two: Stop Trying to Manage the World

Rule Two: We are all Containers for feelings

Chapter Three: Containers

Rule Three: Feelings do not mature

Chapter Four: Emotions Do Not Mature

Chapter Five: Intermission: Evolving the Rules

Rule Four: What we practice we become

Chapter Six: Practice → Become

Chapter Seven: Practice Gratitude

Rule Five: Drama is optional

Chapter Eight: Drama IS optional

Chapter Nine: How to Use the Rules

Notes

If I have seen further than others,

it is by standing upon

the shoulders of giants.

-Isaac Newton

for Hap and Jerry, Mom and Dad-and The Lads, for all the Wahoo!

Homage and Acknowledgements

To my clients, for whom the initial essays were written: while I cannot list you by name, know that you will always have my gratitude for the opportunity to share the excavation and discover with you which of these concepts were worth keeping. I hope they will continue to be of use.

To all those teachers, researchers, therapists, theorists, and authors who have fed my hunger to understand and whose efforts have seeped so deeply into my thinking that discerning it from my own is sometimes tricky: please know that your gifts have fed many hungry spirits. For the wisdom of Gerry Arndt, Harry P. Dunne, Joe Esposito, Carolyn Scholz, Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls, Carl Whitaker, Bill O’Hanlon, John Bradshaw, David Burns, Kelly McGonigal, Wayne Dyer, Beth Jarman, Erich Fromm, Enid McIntosh Norris, Tom Fogarty, and the brilliant people at SMI, Nightingale Conant, Sounds True, Hay House, and CareerTrack: I am continually blessed by the miracle of your hard work. Please accept my apologies if I have failed to reference it sufficiently or to represent it fairly. All errors are my very own.

To all my honest readers and faithful cheerleaders, especially Elouise Bentley Hamilton Rector and Lynn Lenihan who faced those gritty first drafts with such gusto: high praise and profound gratitude. To Eva Carll-Albert, Jessica Meredith, Louisa K. Baker, Candy Leonard, Marilyn Venuti, Karen Marshall, and Karen Parker, and to those who read or listened to portions as they emerged, particularly Karen Ethier-Waring, Jude Rittenhouse, Platt Arnold, and Melanie Greenhouse: without your commitment of time, kindness, and compassionate critique my words would be far less readable.

To those who opened doors and did the heavy lifting in the publication process, special appreciation goes to David Arnold, Walter Schwarz at Figaro Design, and Ruth W. Crocker of Elm Grove Press. To say that I am fortunate to know you is a monumental understatement. You have my earnest thanks for your expertise, patience, and kindness. I really couldn’t have done this without all of you.

Introduction

This book is about being awake to the power of attending to our selves as we make choices.

The mechanics of how we create patterns of thought and behavior, while widely known to the inner circle of psychotherapy professionals, are rarely shared in everyday language to the average intelligent consumer. This is my maiden effort to correct that omission–in a way that makes these ideas portable, memorable and, now and then, good for a laugh.

I decided I couldn’t be everybody’s therapist, so I assembled 5 Rules for Drama-Free Living to get these powerful tools to the widest number of people for the greatest good.

The development of skills to connect with one’s own truth and with our fellow beings is a basic journey of life. The way we manage stress (or crank up its volume) will help deepen emotional habits. When we make conscious choices instead of falling back into programs inherited from past generations—or absorbed unconsciously from the network of influences that surrounds us—we get to feel some power over our daily lives.

It is fairly old-school to take responsibility for one’s own life and happiness, but it’s a practice that has a very refreshing result: increased satisfaction coupled with significantly shorter times of real misery. Read on.

Practical Approach to the Rules

1.You get to choose. These ideas are really suggestions for new ways to look at your